A Review on Recycling of End-of-Life Light-Emitting Diodes for Metal Recovery

AbstractNowadays Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are widely utilized. They are applied as backlighting in Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) and TV sets or as lighting equipments in homes, cars, instruments and street-lightning. End of life equipments are containing more and more LEDs. The recovery of valuable materials – such as Ga, Au, Cu etc. – from the LEDs is essential for the creating the circular economy. First task is the development of a proper recycling technology. Most of the researchers propose fully chemical or thermal-chemical pathway for the recycling of LEDs.In the meantime our approach based on the thorough investigation of the structure and composition of LEDs, and shown in this paper, is the combination of mechanical and chemical techniques in order to recover more valuable products, as well as to facilitate the mass transfer. Our laboratory scale experiments are introduced, the final aim of which is Ga recovery in accordance with our above approach. It was experimentally proved that the LED chips contain Ga and can be recovered by mechanical processes along with copper-product. Ga is presented on the surface of the chips in GaN form. Mechano-chemical activation in high energy density stirred medium mill and the following acidic leaching resulted in the enrichment of 99.52% of gallium in the pregnant solution.

Download Full-text

Influence of the Carrier Mobility and Charge Accumulation in Interfacial Layers on Deterioration in Organic Light-emitting Diodes

IEEJ Transactions on Fundamentals and Materials ◽

10.1541/ieejfms.137.291 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 137 (5) ◽

pp. 291-297

Author(s):

Hirofumi Nakamura ◽

Miki Kuribayashi ◽

Chihaya Adachi

Keyword(s):

Carrier Mobility ◽

Light Emitting Diodes ◽

Organic Light Emitting Diodes ◽

Charge Accumulation ◽

Light Emitting ◽

Interfacial Layers ◽

Organic Light

Download Full-text

Injecting Inter-Layers and the Built-in Potential of Blue Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-660-jj6.9 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 660 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas M. Brown ◽

Ian S. Millard ◽

David J. Lacey ◽

Jeremy H. Burroughes ◽

Richard H. Friend ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Indium Tin Oxide ◽

Light Emitting Diodes ◽

Basic Structure ◽

Thin Layers ◽

Carrier Injection ◽

Semiconducting Polymer ◽

Light Emitting ◽

Physical Mechanisms ◽

Organic Solid ◽

Polymer Light Emitting Diodes

ABSTRACTThe semiconducting-polymer/injecting-electrode heterojunction plays a crucial part in the operation of organic solid state devices. In polymer light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a common fundamental structure employed is Indium-Tin-Oxide/Polymer/Al. However, in order to fabricate efficient devices, alterations to this basic structure have to be carried out. The insertion of thin layers, between the electrodes and the emitting polymer, has been shown to greatly enhance LED performance, although the physical mechanisms underlying this effect remain unclear. Here, we use electro-absorption measurements of the built-in potential to monitor shifts in the barrier height at the electrode/polymer interface. We demonstrate that the main advantage brought about by inter-layers, such as poly(ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(styrene sulphonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS) at the anode and Ca, LiF and CsF at the cathode, is a marked reduction of the barrier to carrier injection. The electro- absorption results also correlate with the electroluminescent characteristics of the LEDs.

Download Full-text

Low-Temperature Operation of Green, Blue and UV InGaN/GaN Multiple-Quantum-Well Light-Emitting Diodes

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-764-c5.5 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 764 ◽

Author(s):

X. A. Cao ◽

S. F. LeBoeuf ◽

J. L. Garrett ◽

A. Ebong ◽

L. B. Rowland ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quantum Well ◽

Light Emitting Diodes ◽

Multiple Quantum Well ◽

Light Output ◽

Localized States ◽

Multiple Quantum ◽

Nonradiative Recombination ◽

Light Emitting ◽

Temperature Range ◽

Green Leds

Absract:Temperature-dependent electroluminescence (EL) of InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with peak emission energies ranging from 2.3 eV (green) to 3.3 eV (UV) has been studied over a wide temperature range (5-300 K). As the temperature is decreased from 300 K to 150 K, the EL intensity increases in all devices due to reduced nonradiative recombination and improved carrier confinement. However, LED operation at lower temperatures (150-5 K) is a strong function of In ratio in the active layer. For the green LEDs, emission intensity increases monotonically in the whole temperature range, while for the blue and UV LEDs, a remarkable decrease of the light output was observed, accompanied by a large redshift of the peak energy. The discrepancy can be attributed to various amounts of localization states caused by In composition fluctuation in the QW active regions. Based on a rate equation analysis, we find that the densities of the localized states in the green LEDs are more than two orders of magnitude higher than that in the UV LED. The large number of localized states in the green LEDs are crucial to maintain high-efficiency carrier capture at low temperatures.

Download Full-text